


Forts Have Many Purposes

by betheflame



Series: Shorts & Drabbles 2019 [6]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Fluff, Kid Fic, M/M, Married Sex, Steve and Bucky Being Soft Parents, Stucky Bingo 2019, all the feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-12
Updated: 2020-02-11
Packaged: 2020-08-19 22:23:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20217247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/betheflame/pseuds/betheflame
Summary: “Well, girls, whuddya think,” Bucky addressed them. “Your dad is an artist, and your pops here, well, I’m an engineer. Who should design the fort?”The girls whispered to each other for a few seconds until they definitely said, “Dad.”Steve crowed in victory and Bucky threw up his hands in defeat. “An artist, I tell ya. Stevie, what lies are you feeding our daughters?!”“Only that imagination and creativity are the fuel of life,” Steve said with a twinkle in his eye.“Well, heaven forbid we advocate for structural integrity and logic,” Bucky replied as he began to fix things his way anyway, ignoring the conversation around him.This, for the record, is exactly what Steve knew he would do. They’d only been together for 20 years.&&&&A flufernutter of a fic where Steve & Bucky help their daughters build a pillow fort in the living room and maybe also use it for other purposes.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> HUGE thanks to softbuckyboy and madeline from the Stucky Bingo discord for helping me move this from plot bunny to finished fic. 
> 
> Bingo Card fill for "Married Sex".

“Steve, baby, I’m so close,” Bucky breathed into Steve’s ear, “just… yes… there…”

** _BOOM_ **

“Until one of them screams, just keep going, please,” Bucky begged his husband. 

“Father of the year,” Steve laughed as he thrust one last time and felt Bucky fall apart around him. 

“Never claimed otherwise,” Bucky smirked and kissed Steve gently. “Thanks.”

“Okay?”

Bucky nodded. “Not, like, our best work, but -”

“The time constraints offered by two episodes of Wishbone,” Steve said and grabbed the wet wipes they kept by the bed for hurried clean-up, while Bucky fished around for his recently discarded pajama pants. 

“I’ll go make sure none of our children are gravely harmed in some way,” Steve said a few moments later when they were both Public Parent appropriate. 

“If there’s no blood, we can dash back in here quickly,” Bucky started with a smirk. 

“You remain parent of the year,” Steve replied, planting a kiss on Bucky’s forehead. 

“Well, with the paragon of perfection that is my husband,” Bucky started. 

“That SAT word-a-day calendar still working out for you?”

Bucky lazily flipped Steve off as they both wandered from their bedroom and into the living room, where their 5-year-old daughter Erin was constructing some sort of fort along with their 7-year-old daughter Harper. 

“Anyone dead?” Bucky called out as the pair approached the pile of blankets, towels, and couch cushions strewn about. 

“Nope,” Harper called from the depths of the pile. 

“Then the crash was?”

Both kids started talking at once and it took the two men a few seconds to sort out the syllables tripping over each other. 

“So, you’re trying to tell me,” Steve cocked his brow at his children, “that Neville is why this room is a mess?”

All four pairs of eyes flew to the corner of the living room, where Neville the 10-year-old chocolate lab huffed out a snort of annoyance, confirming that he not only hadn’t been a part of the destruction, but he hadn’t moved since Bucky and Steve had gone to their room. 

“Okay, well, I’m sure Neville is really sorry,” Bucky said, barely keeping a straight face. He quickly glanced at his watch and then at his husband. He knew that look in Steve’s eyes. They’d only been together for twenty years. 

It hadn’t, of course, been a direct path from the moment the pair met in a neighborhood Little League team to being married with children. They spent the first decade of their relationship as friends, soulmates even, before they took the first halting steps towards something more in the last years of college. There were detours and setbacks, moments where each of them dated other people and broke the other’s heart, times where they had to be brave and speak truth that was risky. 

Like the first time Bucky had to pick Steve up after a date. 

_“Well, you’re looking chipper,” Bucky said as Steve climbed in his car. The pair were back in Brooklyn between their freshman and sophomore years of college - Steve was at Rhode Island Institute of Design and Bucky at Manhattan College - and were heading out to Fire Island for a beach day. Steve grinned and threw his bag into the backseat. _

_“Well, let’s just say that Miss Madeline Alvarez has talents beyond graphic design.”_

_Bucky’s heart skipped several beats and he fought to keep his face impassive. “Sounds like good news for your dick, pal.”_

_Steve smiled. “Hmhm.”_

_Bucky swallowed. “So, girls too, huh? Or just girls?”_

_“Too,” Steve said. “Too.”_

_“Got it. Gonna see her again?”_

_Steve shrugged. “She didn’t seem all that interested in an again.”_

_Bucky made a face. “Who the fuck wouldn’t be interested in an again with you?”_

_It was out of his mouth before he could stop it and he saw a look of confusion pass over his best friend’s face. This wasn’t how they teased each other. _

_“So, you need coffee?” Bucky prayed to all gods that changing the subject could bury the subtext. _

_“Yeah, pal, coffee would be great.”_

Or the first time Steve finally told Bucky that he loved him in that way, which happened in the middle of one of their longer fights. 

_“What the fuck are we even fighting about?!” Bucky yelled at the Steve on his phone screen. He hated FaceTime, hated the distance between Manhattan and Providence. _

_“That you won’t apply for the Stark internship!” Steve nearly roared. “I don’t understand why you keep selling yourself so short! You are top of your class and Manhattan is no joke, plus this would be an opportunity to be on the cutting edge of nano technology for environmental engineering, which you’ve been lecturing me about for the past, I don’t know, three years?”_

_“I ain’t gonna cut it at Stark,” Bucky replied calmly. “I know my limits, Stevie.”_

_“NO,” Bucky heard a sound like Steve had pounded his fist on a wall. “You don’t! Buck, you are brilliant, do you get that? You are the whole fucking package. You are smart, and kind, and funny as fuck, and a hard worker, and a good man, and Jesus Christ you put yourself in this box that says you are less than and I have no idea what the fuck that even means becuase you’ve never been less than to me, you’ve always been the best, the most, the everything, and for all the saints and all the sinners, I fucking love you and I wish that you could see yourself the way I do! As the man I am most proud of in my whole fucking life and the one that makes everything else makes sense. God, Buck, I love you and I wish you could understand how much.”_

_Somewhere in the middle of the rant, Bucky had stopped breathing. They had told each other they loved each other before, sure, like when Steve’s ma died or when Bucky got the full scholarship, but this… felt different. _

_“That last bit, punk, whuddya saying,” Bucky breathed quietly. It felt like he was risking everything for clarification but that he’d actually die if he didn’t have it. _

_Steve was breathing a bit heavy from the exertion of his rant, and Bucky’s question seemed to register something across his face. “I love you. I’m saying I love you. And I -”_

_“Like Frodo and Sam love me, or like Harry and Sally?”_

_Steve blinked a few times and Bucky could feel the tension grow between them. Come on, Stevie, be honest with me._

_“Like Han and Leia.”_

_Bucky felt tears come to his eyes. “Me too, Stevie.”_

_Steve’s entire face brightened as though a lightbulb went off inside his skin. “Yeah?”_

_“Yeah. Since we was fifteen.”_

_“You fucking joking?” Steve started laughing. “At Sally Bingham’s party?”_

_Bucky nodded, biting his lip at the memory. “You too?”_

_“What’s your week look like?”_

_“Usual. Why?”_

_“Because I’m getting in the car right now and I want to know how much of your free time I can have.”_

_“You get my life, Stevie,” Bucky said, with a hint of melodrama he knew he was going to pay for later, but also could not deny. “The free time comes as a bonus.”_

Then there was the time that Steve brought a puppy home, all giant feet and slobber and placed him in his sobbing husband’s arms. 

_“What’s this?” Bucky sniffed. _

_“A puppy,” Steve replied. _

_“No shit, Sherlock, but you said no dogs, so what’s this.”_

_Steve rubbed the back of his neck, a sure sign that he was about to say something hard, and sat down next to Bucky and the squirming pile of fur. “I can’t make this better, so I thought maybe he could.”_

_Bucky blinked. The last week had been terrible. After two years of trying to adopt a baby, which was hard enough under the civil partnership laws much less the homophobia baked into much of American culture, they thought they had finally gotten one. The birth mother, however, changed her mind last minute. Bucky had shattered and he wasn’t ashamed to admit it. _

_“We can’t get a baby, so you got me a fur baby?”_

_“And I will take him back if you ever call him that again,” Steve replied. “Six weeks, just weaned from his mom. All his shots, the whole nine, I got him from a girl at work. They haven’t named him yet. I wanted to leave that for you.”_

_Bucky paused and stroked the soft, chocolate fur of the puppy in his arms. He twisted the dog a bit so he could see its eyes and was rewarded with a smattering of puppy kisses. _

_“Neville,” Bucky said. “Neville Longbottom Barnes.”_

_“Sounds perfect,” Steve kissed Bucky’s temple. “I’ll go get dinner started. You and Neville get to know each other.”_

They celebrated their civil partnership date, and their wedding anniversary, and those were fun, but if you asked either Steve or Bucky how long they’d been together, they traced the date back to the beginning. Foundations, after all, are very important. 

“You know, ladies,” Steve addressed their daughters. “I know a thing or two about building forts.”

“Oh here we go,” Bucky flailed his arms melodramatically, causing both girls to giggle. 

“Dad, do you want to help us?” Harper asked, as though the idea of Dad helping her build a fort was too much to hope for. 

“Duh,” Steve said. “But, first we gotta decide how we’re going to build. You have to have a vision.”

“You need a solid foundation,” Bucky corrected. 

“You need to know what you want it to look like,” Steve corrected back. 

Bucky rolled his eyes dramatically. “I think we should leave it up to the bosses.”

“Agreed,” Steve said. 

“Well, girls, whuddya think,” Bucky addressed them. “Your dad is an artist, and your pops here, well, I’m an engineer. Who should design the fort?”

The girls whispered to each other for a few seconds until they definitely said, “Dad.”

Steve crowed in victory and Bucky threw up his hands in defeat. “An artist, I tell ya. Stevie, what lies are you feeding our daughters?!”

“Only that imagination and creativity are the fuel of life,” Steve said with a twinkle in his eye. 

“Well, heaven forbid we advocate for structural integrity and logic,” Bucky replied as he began to fix things his way anyway, ignoring the conversation around him. 

This, for the record, is exactly what Steve knew he would do. They’d only been together for 20 years.

_____________________

It was unilaterally decided that dinner would be eaten inside the fort.

“Girls,” Bucky started as they all finished their tacos. “Can you go clean up and meet me and Dad back here?”

‘Clean up’ was a relative term, of course, but the girls were responsible each night for scraping their plates and rinsing them before putting them in the dishwasher. If something was sharp or heavy, they asked for help, but Harper was every inch the stereotypical older sister and she graciously guided Erin through the process each night. 

“You think tonight,” Steve said as soon as the girls were out of ear shot. 

Bucky nodded. “We had a really good few hours there, and Courtney said to tell them when we knew they felt secure in us as a family. The home study is next week, after all.”

Steve nodded thoughtfully. “You’re right. This was a good few hours.”

“Yeah, because I took over the fort building so that it would actually stand,” Bucky snorted. 

“You know what I love the most about you, babe? I love the humility.”

“Just part of the service, sweetheart,” Bucky winked. He pulled out his bun and shook his hair free, ran his fingers through it and was about to put it back again when Steve grabbed his wrist. 

“Down.”

“Stevie,” Bucky whined. “It’s kinda warm in here.”

“Down,” Steve said firmly and let his eyes scrape up and down Bucky’s body. When they made eye contact again, his pupils were slightly blown. 

“We discovering some sort of fort kink, babe?” Bucky said quietly. 

“I like when you build things,” Steve said simply. 

Bucky smirked. “So let’s tell our daughters that they’re getting temporary siblings, put them to bed, and then you can show me just how deep that competence kink goes, shall we?”

Steve leaned over to kiss Bucky, which is exactly when the fort flaps flew open again. 

“Ewwwwww, Daaaaaaaaad,” Erin squealed. 

“Yeah, yeah, we know, love is gross,” Bucky waved his hand around. This argument was an old one. 

“Can we keep the fort,” Harper asked as she arranged some pillows to sit on. 

“For a few days, sure,” Steve replied. “But it has to come down on Saturday when Auntie Nat comes.”

This was an allowable exchange for the two girls because while they may have liked the fort, they _loved_ their Auntie Nat. 

“Harper, do you remember when Erin first came home,” Steve started. 

Harper nodded. “You told me she was staying with us for a while, but you didn’t know how long because her mom was sick and Erin needed somewhere safe to be.”

“That’s right,” Bucky confirmed and reached for his youngest. “And you were such a good big sister to her, even when you thought we weren’t going to get to keep her.”

Erin grinned. “That’s because Harper is the bestest big sister.”

“We think so too,” Steve confirmed as he saw Harper’s ears slightly blush. She wasn’t their biological child, but it was uncanny how similar she was to Steve. It had taken one more stilted attempt at adoption after Neville had come to live with them before Bucky and Steve had been gifted with Harper. 

“And we think you’ll also be a really good big sister,” Bucky said and kissed the crown of her head. “So we were thinking we could start opening our home to more kids who need a safe place to be for a little bit.”

“Like Erin?” Harper asked. 

“Well, maybe, and some of them may be a little older, and we doubt any of them would stay forever,” Steve answered, “but more foster kids, yes.”

The family talked back and forth for a while longer, the men answering any questions that their girls had until finally, Erin quietly said she wasn’t sure she wanted strangers in her house.

“Well, it’s going to be hard,” Steve confirmed to Erin, “and a little weird for sure, but -”

But then Harper cut him off, and Steve was once again overwhelmed at his calm, brave, and wise daughter. 

“E,” she said, taking her sister’s hand, “think of all our friends who don’t have our family. We have so much love to give, right? And our family is the best. So why wouldn’t we want to share some of that whenever we can?”

Erin seemed to contemplate this and finally nodded. “But what happens when we love them and then they go away?”

“Well,” Bucky said as he kissed her hair. “Then we get really good at being thankful for the time we have with them.”

She seemed to contemplate this for a few minutes before nodding. “Can we also get a new puppy? If we get new friends, Neville should too.”

Biting back laughter, Steve and Bucky looked at each other over the heads of their daughters. “We’ll talk about it.”

_____________________

“Quiet,” Steve hissed at Bucky’s slight moan. “You didn’t soundproof the fort.”

“If you had let me source appropriate building materials,” Bucky panted, “maybe-”

“If you are still being a little shit, I’m not doing my job,” Steve kissed Bucky’s shoulder again and spread his fingers slightly wider. 

“Or I’m just a _good multi-tasker_,” the last word came out on a hiss as Steve’s fingers found their goal. 

The pair were lost to quiet moans and whispers and pleas for a bit until Bucky’s foot shot out and suddenly the blanket that had been the ceiling was directly covering them. 

“Did we just break the fort?” Steve bit back laughter. 

“Oh, I think it was definitely Neville,” Bucky replied and the pair lost themselves to giggles. 

“Fuck, we better fix this,” Steve finally sighed. 

“Oh, you don’t want to tell our children that Fort Family turned into Fort Fucking?”

“I think we get a few more years before we make Nat explain all that to them,” Steve confirmed. 

“We’re outsourcing their sexual education?” Bucky raised an eyebrow. 

Steve started ticking things off his fingers. “One, she has a uterus so is inherently more qualified than we are. Two, she will make sure they understand consent. Three, she will show them how to kill a man with their shoe. Four -”

“Christ the night, you’ve thought about this,” Bucky interrupted him. “It wasn’t an argument, just a clarification. Stand down.”

Steve grinned sheepishly, “Sorry.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Bucky smiled affectionately, “help me fix this mess and then you can make it up to me where there is soundproofing.”

“I love you, James Barnes.”

“Jesus, breaking out the big guns,” Bucky’s eyes twinkled as he pulled his husband in for a long kiss. “I love you too, Steven Rogers.”


	2. Art from Em!

Once again, [Em](https://www.patreon.com/em_dibujsb) just hit it out of the park. Here's our lads with their girls!


End file.
